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Bad thread title.  I did exactly what it said and completely ignored it till I realized people were posting replies.




This is a typical political tactic of proposing things the free market has already created and claiming credit.  Al Gore / Internet.




Insurance companies compete for business.  They are not going to raise their rates, unless everyone is raising their rates.  If everyone is raising their rates, there is a reason for it.  Different states have different litigation restrictions.   For example, Florida has horrible lawsuit happy legislation.  As such malpractice insurance there can be as high as $277,000/yr, where as Oklahoma, the average is about $17K.




Actually, to some extent, I agree with this.  Under the Constitution, the federal government has no legal right to deal with this issue.  All rights not explicitly stated as domain of the Federal government, are reserved for the states, as it should be.  The Federal should have no dealings with education either.  It's up to the state if they wish to implement, or improve.


That said, the Federal government is what is causing most of the problems in the health care industry, and as such, they maybe should try and fix it, but rather stop harming it by undoing the legislation that has caused the problems.




I do not understand this either, unless it refers to generic drugs.  Generic drugs present a specific problem.   One company spends millions creating a drug.   Then when they finely come out with the drug, someone copies it and undercuts them by a ton.   The result is one of two things.  One, they raise the price of other drugs not yet copied, in order to cover the cost of R&D of the copied one.  Two, they reduce spending on R&D, which results in few new better drugs being produced.   In either case, we the consumer lose, either in the short term by high priced drugs which do not have alternatives, or long term by drugs that will never be created because of lower R&D funding.




Reducing smoking will not help anyway.  That's conventional wisdom that fails the reality test.  The information suggests that smokers die quicker, resulting in less of a drain on health care costs.




First, we need to break the link between work and insurance.  When the insurance company feels they have you locked in, they don't have to worry about competition that much.  You work for ZZZ corp, you have to go with us.


Second, we have to reduce taxes so people have more money to spend on the insurance they need.


Third, we need to stop Medicare and Medicaid from dictating prices to health care providers.   When Medicare says we are only paying $300 for this $1,000 dollar treatment, that cost is passed on to paying customers, thus Insurance companies, thus our premiums.




Bad plan.  It will become a major boondoggle and cost billions.  Why do we Americans have to always learn obvious lessons the hard way?   Why do we even have a history class in our schools when no one seems to learn anything from them?


How many times does socialism have to fail before we get that socialism fails?   How many socialized health care systems the world over are in horrible condition, and yet we still want to try it here?  We have Obama stand up and tell people what they want to hear, even though it has no chance of working, and we think it's a good plan?


VA Hospitals are socialized health care.  They suck.  Masshealth is a Mass-failure, with inadequate care, poor service, and long lines.  Canadians are flying all over the planet to get health care, when they get free care at home, why?  France is using medications that are 10 years old, and obsolete in the US, because their government won't pay for newer drugs.  They don't even have the option.   Brazil for a time, because hospital beds and space was so tight, they simply euthanized chronically ill patents when they needed the room.


We need to stop this stupidity that Government is going to 'fix' something.  Government is the whole reason it's broke to begin with.  You don't force hospitals to lower costs, that's a bad plan.  Look at Canada with a national doctor shortage.  Why?  Because it's not worth practicing in Canada.  Why do you think they spend so much less on health care?  Because they don't pay their people much, and they leave and practice in the US.


We get this idea Government is going to lower health care cost.  Maybe they will, but what will we lose in service?   To get an MRI, the average Canadian waits months, sometimes a year.    If your in pain, and told you might have cancer, and you know that every day you could be one step closer to being terminal, you want to wait a year to get an MRI?


But at least it will be cheaper or free to get the MRI to find out you waited too long to operate and now have only a few months to live.


Why can't we learn from the mistakes of others, without having to replicate them here?  I just don't get it.  Americans truly are stupid sometimes.


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